Friday, July 01, 2016

Romances in Ladino

Eric just re-tweeted an announcement about the republication of some romances in Ladino.

Below are two of the original covers, which are in the collection of the Alliance Israélite Universelle.

Seventeen of these little pamphlets were among the books donated by the family of Israël-Salvator Révah (1917-1973). They're works of popular romantic fiction, written in Ladino (the language of Sephardi Jews, which is very similar to medieval Castilian/Spanish) and published in Istanbul between 1930 and 1933. [Images and details from eSepharad.com]

Karen Gerson Şarhon is responsible for the republication of the works by the
Sentro Sefaradi de Estambol. They'll be publishing 16 of them, at a rate of 3 every month and a half. The first three (pictured at the very top of this page) are: El Amor de Antonyo por su Mujer (by Moiz Habib), La
Ermoza Janeta entre dos Amantes (by Eliya Gayus) and El Amor de
Matilda kon dos Jovenes (by Moiz Habib). Anyone interested in obtaining copies should write to: sephardiccenter@gmail.com [Details from Salom]